药水
yào shuǐ · HSK 2
medicine in liquid form
💊💧 药 = medicine + 水 = water; liquid medicine in a bottle
药 (yào) means medicine; 水 (shuǐ) means water. Together: medicinal liquid, i.e. bottled medicine or tonic. Also the name of Yaksu, a North Korean town near the Liaoning/Jilin border.
药 — grass radical 艹 + 约 (yuē, phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound. The grass radical 艹 on top signals a plant or herb, reflecting that early Chinese medicines were largely herbal. The component 约 below provides the sound, hinting at the pronunciation yào. The traditional form is 藥.
水 — pictograph of flowing water
水 is a pictograph depicting a stream of flowing water, with the central line representing the main current and the side strokes showing splashing droplets or ripples. In oracle bone script it was drawn even more clearly as a wavy vertical line with branches. It retains its original meaning of 'water' and also serves as a radical, often appearing in the compressed form 氵.